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JOURNAL OF MICROELECTROMECHANICAL SYSTEMS, VOL. 14, NO. 5, OCTOBER 2005

InP-Based Optical Waveguide MEMS Switches

With Evanescent Coupling Mechanism
Marcel W. Pruessner, Student Member, IEEE, Kuldeep Amarnath, Madhumita Datta, Member, IEEE, Daniel P. Kelly,
S. Kanakaraju, Ping-Tong Ho, and Reza Ghodssi, Member, IEEE

AbstractAn optical waveguide MEMS switch fabricated on

an indium phosphide (InP) substrate for operation at 1550 nm
wavelength is presented. Compared to other MEMS optical
switches, which typically use relatively large mirrors or long
end-coupled waveguides, our device uses a parallel switching
mechanism. The device utilizes evanescent coupling between two
closely-spaced waveguides fabricated side by side. Coupling is
controlled by changing the gap and the coupling length between
the two waveguides via electrostatic pull-in. This enables both
optical switching and variable optical coupling at voltages below
10 V. Channel isolation as high as 47 dB and coupling efficiencies of up to 66% were obtained with switching losses of less than
0.5 dB. We also demonstrate voltage-controlled variable optical
coupling over a 17.4 dB dynamic range. The devices are compact
with 2 m 2 m core cross section and active area as small as
500 m 5 m. Due to the small travel range of the waveguides,
fast operation is obtained with switching times as short as 4 s.
Future devices can be scaled down to less than 1 m
1 m
waveguide cross-sectional area and device length less than 100 m
without significant change in device design.
[1372]
Index TermsDirectional coupler, indium phosphide (InP), integrated waveguides, optical MEMS switches.

I. INTRODUCTION

LL-OPTICAL networks promise large bandwidth and information carrying capacity [1]. These networks consist of
optical fibers for transporting information over long distances.
Optical switches are used for manipulating the optical signals
directly rather than converting them into the electrical domain
for manipulation, thereby reducing power consumption and increasing network speed and data integrity. All-optical data manipulation is enabled by optical integrated circuits (OICs), or
integrated optics [2].

Manuscript received July 3, 2004; revised March 6, 2005. This work was supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER award (R. Ghodssi)
and by the Laboratory for Physical Sciences (LPS). Subject Editor O. Solgaard.
M. W. Pruessner, M. Datta, D. P. Kelly, and R. Ghodssi are with the MEMS
Sensors and Actuators Lab, The Institute for Systems Research, University of
Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 USA. They are also with the Department
of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College,
Park, MD 20742 USA and the Laboratory for Physical Sciences, College Park,
MD 20740 USA (e-mail: marcelp@glue.umd.edu; mdatta@glue.umd.edu;
dpkelly@glue.umd.edu; ghodssi@eng.umd.edu).
K. Amarnath and P.-T. Ho are with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College, Park, MD 20742 USA.
They are also with the Laboratory for Physical Sciences, College Park, MD
20740 USA (e-mail: akuldeep@glue.umd.edu; ho@eng.umd.edu).
S. Kanakaraju is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Maryland, College, Park, MD 20742 USA (e-mail:
sk@lps.umd.edu).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/JMEMS.2005.851848

MEMS have unique advantages for optical communication

applications [3], [4]. For one, the required displacements in optical switches and tunable filters are around one wavelength
or less and are well suited to MEMS actuators. Also,
batch fabrication enables great cost savings compared to macroscale devices and enables a large number of input/output ports
on a single chip with low-loss.
Indium phosphide (InP) is attractive for optical communications due to its suitability as a substrate material for active
optical devices made of indium gallium arsenide phosphide
wavelength.
(InGaAsP) [5] operating at the
Therefore, optical switches fabricated in InP can monolithically
integrate lasers or semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs).
In this manner, losses can be compensated on-chip without
the need for separate optical amplifiersa significant cost
savings. Although InP-based MEMS have been previously
demonstrated, most efforts have concentrated on vertical cavity
tunable optical filters [6][12]. The tuning range for these
optical filters is around 100 nm with similar actuation displacements. While InP is brittle, it has previously been shown to be
sufficiently robust for MEMS applications [13]. Furthermore,
we have already demonstrated InP-based electrostatic actuators
displacement [14]. Such displacements enable
with 1.8
all-optical switching.
Compared to free-space optical MEMS switches, which use
large mirrors, moving waveguide MEMS switches are compact
and enable large-scale integration while limiting losses due to
the tight optical confinement within the waveguides. This is especially true for InP, which has a large refractive index
at
wavelength [15]. Previously reported devices utilize a coupling mechanism in which an input waveguide
is actuated to end couple with one of several output waveguides.
on silicon [16],
Such devices have been realized in
[17], GaAs/AlGaAs [18], and polymers on silicon-on-insulator
[19] with operating voltages as low as 3.3 V [18], switching
[18], losses of 0.5 dB (0.05 dB with
times as low as 32
index-matching oil) and less than 52 dB crosstalk [17].
Our coupling mechanism differs from previous approaches.
The device comprises two closely-spaced parallel waveguides.
Coupling is controlled by changing the waveguide gap. The coupling mechanism relies on the evanescent optical field just outside of the waveguidea field that decays exponentially with
distance. Consequently, we require only very small displacefor optical switching, resulting in very comments
pact devices. Our approach also enables low-loss variable optical coupling, which is useful to tap a small fraction of power
to measure the signal integrity of a network.

1057-7157/$20.00 2005 IEEE

PRUESSNER et al.: InP-BASED OPTICAL WAVEGUIDE MEMS SWITCHES

1071

We will use the following nomenclature and device des,

ignations in this paper (
):
device length; length of movable waveguide
segment;
measured waveguide pull-in length and physical coupling length;
theoretical characteristic coupling length (results in 100% coupling);
Coupler 1a
,
,
(pull-in actuation);
Coupler 2a
,
,
(pull-in actuation);
,
,
Coupler 2b
(pull-in actuation; stiction);
Coupler 3b
,
,
(pull-in actuation; stiction);
,
(comb-drive
Coupler C-D
actuation).
II. EVANESCENT COUPLING
A. Theory
Evanescent couplers are commonly used in optical communications as passive power splitters [20]. In optical fibers and
waveguides part of the optical power travels outside of the core.
This field, called the evanescent field, decays exponentially
away from the fiber/waveguide. If two identical single-mode
fibers or waveguides are brought close together, then the compound structure supports two optical modes: even and odd.
These even and odd modes travel with different propagation
constants and interfere constructively or destructively along
different points in the waveguide [21] (Fig. 1). This varying
degree of interference enables optical switches to be realized.
Coupling between two identical waveguides is described by
the coupled-mode equations [22]:
(1a)
(1b)
where
and
are the electric field amplitude in
the
and
waveguides (see Fig. 1), respectively,
is the propagation constant for each isolated waveguide, and
is the coupling coefficient. The solution of the coupled-mode
equations determines the amount of optical coupling. If the sepbetween the two fibers or waveguides and the
aration
between them are chosen
physical coupling length
carefully, any fraction of power can be coupled from the
to the
waveguide [21], [22]
(2a)
(2b)
(3)
where we have assumed
,
and negligible waveguide losses. The reader should be
instead of the device length, , in the
aware that we refer to

Fig. 1. (a) Top view schematic (in actuated state with waveguides pulled-in),
(b) optical coupling via interference of odd and even modes, and (c) variation of
coupled optical power in the BAR and CROSS outputs as a function of position
along the length of the waveguide. Note that (b) represents the electric fields;
j j .
the optical power in (c) is

P= A

equations above since the coupling length is determined by the

pull-in length.
The MEMS coupler takes advantage of the exponential decay
of the evanescent field. By varying the spacing between two parallel, movable waveguides, we can perform a switching operation. The top-view device schematic is shown in Fig. 1(a). For
gaps, we expect no optical coupling due to the exponen12
tial decay of the evanescent field. However, at pull-in the gap is
around 100 nm (depending on the sidewall roughness and verticality) and coupling will proceed as in Fig. 1(b) and (c).
B. Advantages of MEMS-Based Couplers
Passive evanescent couplers are commonly used as optical
splitters. Active couplers have used integrated thin-film heaters
to perform optical switching by varying the refractive index, ,
between two fixed parallel waveguides [23]. However, these devices typically consume significant power (tens of mW). Other
approaches have utilized expensive electrooptic materials [24]
to vary and achieve switching by application of an electric
field.
The device presented here uses electrostatic pull-in actuation to vary the spacing between two movable suspended
, resulting
waveguides. The actuation distances are 12
in low-power and high-speed operation (compared to electrothermal couplers [23]). This also results in a large ON/OFF
contrast and low crosstalk due to the exponential dependence
of optical coupling on the waveguide gap. A similar approach
has been proposed in the past [25], [26] with large attenuation
( 65 dB) at low actuation voltages (2.5 V) obtained experimentally, although successful switching was not demonstrated.
Optical switches using MEMS-actuated evanescent coupling
in gallium arsenide waveguides were simulated in [27], and

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MEMS-actuated displays using cantilevers and evanescent

coupling were experimentally demonstrated in [28]. Successful coupling between a movable silicon waveguide and
a fixed micro-disk resonator optical filter was also recently
demonstrated [29]. However, the moving waveguide segment
length), resulting in a large actuation
was short (100
voltage (120 V). Optical wavelength-selective switching was
demonstrated using a ring-resonator filter and an electrostatically-actuated membrane [30]. This device behaved as an
, but became wavelength-insensitive
optical filter
(all-pass) when the membrane was pulled-in to the ring-resonator ( 20 V).
Our device utilizes moderately doped semiconductor waveg) in order to ensure low-voltage
uides with small gaps (12
operation. The fabrication process is simple compared to
[25], [26] since our waveguides are parallel and actuated
in-plane rather than out-of-plane, resulting in a self-aligned
process without the need for wafer bonding. Compared to [29],
[30], couplers are relatively wavelength insensitive. Finally,
InP enables integration of active devices with optical gain
at 1550 nm. However, for passive operation our device can
also be fabricated in inexpensive materialsi.e., polymer or
waveguides on silicon actuators, or even silicon/SOI
waveguideswithout significant design changes.

Fig. 2. Layer structure and waveguide geometry. The waveguides are

=
and are designed to be under slight tensile
doped
:
. The core and cladding refractive indices are
strain " <
n
:
(for
) and n
at 1550 nm wavelength. The cap layer is
:
InP with
=
.

n = 5 2 10 cm
(
0 05%)
= 3 195 In Ga As P
3 173 (In Ga As P )
n  10 cm

to reduce optical losses due to free carrier absorption; n-type

doping was chosen since p-type gives larger absorption [34].

III. DEVICE DESIGN AND FABRICATION

A. Layer Structure
The InP MEMS structure (see Fig. 2) is grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). We designed a waveguide
and a cladding with
core with
. The small gallium (Ga) and arsenic
(As) mole fractions do not change the mechanical properties of InP significantly, but they enable fine tuning of the
refractive index, bandgap, and intrinsic strain. These layers
and
were chosen to obtain refractive indices
using data from [31].
The layer structure was designed with a bandgap waveglength
, much less than the operating wavelength
so that it is a truly passive waveguide. During electrostatic actuation the electric field is confined to the air gap region
between the waveguides, not within the waveguides themselves,
so any electro-optic effect is minimal [32], [33]. Furthermore,
the variation of waveguide spacing produces a change in coupling that is orders of magnitude greater than any change in coupling due to modulation of the refractive index resulting from an
applied electric field.
Mechanically, the waveguide was designed to be under slight
so that doubly-clamped structures
tensile strain
remain flat and aligned vertically [14]. The gallium (Ga) and
arsenic (As) mole fractions also control the intrinsic strain.
For sacrificial wet etching we require complete selectivity
between the waveguides and the sacrificial layer. We chose InP
sacrificial
waveguides and a lattice-matched
layer, which results in complete selectivity when etching in
.
For electrostatic actuation, the waveguides are moderately
in order
doped. We limit the doping level to

B. Optical Design
The MEMS evanescent coupler utilizes our suspended waveguide technology [35]. Here, the waveguides are suspended
wide tethers spaced
in air above the substrate by 1.5
apart. Optical coupling in our device depends
10002000
,
on the waveguide separation, the physical coupling length,
and the optical polarization. We obtain the coupling coefficient,
, by simulating [36] the effective refractive index for even and
and
) for the 2
wide waveguides
odd modes (
and subsequently calculating the coupling coefficient, , and
[21], [22]:
(4)
(5)
where
and
is the free-space wavelength. Here,
is the characteristic length that results in 100%
coupling from the BAR to the CROSS waveguide; so, ideally,
.
we want
, versus
The simulated characteristic coupling length,
waveguide separation is shown in Fig. 3(a), along with the corresponding coupling coefficient, . Looking at the simulation
result, we note that S-polarization (TE-modes, electric field
perpendicular to wafer plane) results in significantly shorter
than P-polarization (TM-modes, electric field parallel to wafer
plane) for our waveguides. We expect eight times as efficient
coupling for S-polarization compared to P-polarization [see
Fig. 3(b)]. Compact devices with coupling lengths of only a
few hundred microns are feasible. Also, changing the gap from
100 nm to 600 nm effectively turns the device from completely
ON (100% coupling) to OFF (negligible coupling). This

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TABLE I
CALCULATED PULL-IN VOLTAGE FOR VARIOUS COUPLER DESIGNS

Fig. 3. (a) Simulated characteristic coupling length (L ) for 100% transfer

of power from BAR to CROSS waveguide as a function of waveguide
separation (gap) for S- (TE) and P-polarizations (TM). The corresponding
coupling coefficient () is also shown. (b) Polarization-dependent coupling:
S-polarization results in roughly eight times as efficient coupling compared to
P-polarization.

enables high-speed and low-power switching due to the small

actuation distance required.
C. Mechanical Design
For the mechanical design we calculate the pull-in voltage
wide, 4
as a function of waveguide length, assuming 2
tall structures. Although our device consists of two movable
parallel suspended waveguides, we model our device as a single
doubly-clamped waveguide over an infinite plane placed at half
the waveguide-to-waveguide gap. This half-structure model
lets us use standard pull-in equations [37] to obtain an estimate
of the switching voltages of our device. The device pull-in
voltage is twice the voltage obtained from the half-structure
model. In Table I the pull-in voltage for various device geometries is shown. For all calculations the Youngs modulus is
[14] and the intrinsic tensile stress is
(by design).
D. Fabrication
Fabrication of the MEMS coupler is described in our preon 15 mm 15 mm
vious work [38]. We deposit 7000 A
chips. Next, we pattern positive photoresist via projection
lithography followed by reactive ion etching (RIE) of the
mask. Methane-hydrogen RIE is used to etch the InP
with verticality of
waveguides to a depth of greater than 5
better than 85 degrees. After stripping the
mask in BHF,

Fig. 4. (a) Top view of fabricated coupler switch, (b) SEM of suspended 2 m
wide waveguides, and (c) cleaved test waveguide before sacrificial etch with
detail of sidewall roughness. This particular device (coupler 1a) has a 1 m
nominal gap before actuation [(a), (b)]. Other devices have a 2 m nominal
gap.

Ni-Au-Ge-Ni-Au ohmic contacts are patterned via electron

beam evaporation and lift-off in acetone. An annealing step is
atmosphere (400
, 40 sec.) to
then performed in an
alloy the metal contacts. Next, we thin the samples to
thickness and cleave the input and output waveguides to obtain
optical-quality facets for coupling light to our chip. Finally,
layer
we perform sacrificial etching of the
(1:1:8) followed by supercritical
with
drying. A released coupler is shown in Fig. 4, indicating less
than 50 nm sidewall roughness. This determines the approximate coupling gap during pull-in, which will be twice the
sidewall roughness, or 100 nm.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
A. Experimental Setup
All devices were tested at 1550 nm wavelength with
S-polarization (E-field out of the wafer plane, TE-modes),
unless otherwise stated. The experimental setup consisted of
a tunable laser set to 1550 nm, a polarization control unit
and input/output lensed fibers controlled by electrostrictive
XYZ-stages. A probe station and function generator were used

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to actuate the device, and the electrical actuation signals and

measured optical output power were fed to an oscilloscope. We
used a microscope and charge-coupled device (CCD) camera to
image the device during testing to ascertain that coupling was
indeed resulting from the variation in waveguide separation.
B. Electrostatic Actuation
The present devices are electrostatically actuatedin contrast to our previously demonstrated devices, which were
electro-thermally actuated [38]. Fig. 5 shows the measured
pull-in voltage for various waveguide lengths and gaps
along with calculations (material properties:
,
intrinsic stress). Measurements were performed
on dedicated pull-in test structures rather than on the couplers
themselves. The results indicate good agreement with calculations using pull-in equations for doubly-clamped beams [37].
, coupler 1a) operated very
Short devices (
reliably for actuation at the pull-in voltage. Coupler 1a proved
operation as
reliable even at low-frequency
long as the actuation voltage did not exceed the initial pull-in
voltage significantly. Longer and more compliant devices,
, coupler 2b and coupler 3b) suffer
however,
from stiction [39] after initial or repeated pull-in when low-freis used. For high frequency
quency actuation
operation
, reliable operation was obtained for
devices (coupler 2a) with no observable stiction
effects. In excess of 10 million switching cycles have been
with no change in
performed with coupler 2a at
device performance. Therefore, although stiction may affect
long-term device reliability, the experiments indicate that short
devices with large spring constant can exhibit very reliable
operation, provided that proper operating conditions (actuation
voltage, frequency) are met. Later on, in Section V, we present
some alternative designs to the pull-in couplers that do not rely
on pull-in actuation.
Current flow during pull-in is also a concern. Landing electrodes or mechanical stops are a possible solution for preventing
stiction and current flow. However, for efficient optical coupling very small waveguide gaps ( 100 nm) are required, so
that fabrication of precise mechanical landing structures becomes a challenge. Concerning pull-in current, the waveguides
with typical resistance of 10
are doped
unit length. We measured a current of 1.5
during pull-in for
coupler 2a, which is sufficiently small to prevent heating. We
also measured the pull-in current for coupler 2b after stiction
occurs. While the current is increased slightly, it is limited to
for actuation voltages up to 7 V, so heating
less than 25
is minimal. Future devices can utilize waveguides with lower
doping level to reduce pull-in current flow. Alternatively,
or
can be deposited on the waveguide sidewalls. This will
prevent any current flow and will also reduce stiction effects.
C. Tether, Waveguide Propagation, and Insertion Losses
In our MEMS couplers, the waveguides are suspended above
the substrate via tethers [35]. The waveguide propagation loss
was previously measured to be 2.2 dB/cm [35], which includes

Fig. 5. Simulated (lines) and measured (symbols) pull-in voltage for various
coupler test structures. Inset: test structure for measuring pull-in voltage.

scattering losses due to sidewall roughness as well as material

losses. Each tether pair introduces an additional 0.25 dB of loss.
These loss figures are comparable to other III-V semiconductor
waveguides [40]. Rib (ridge) waveguides generally have a larger
cross-sectional area, which reduces scattering losses since the
mode propagates far from the waveguide surface and does not
experience significant sidewall roughness.
The fiber-to-chip coupling loss dominates the insertion loss.
It is about 10 dB at the input and output of the coupler, resulting
in 20 dB total loss. Such losses are to be expected given the inherent differences in the mode-shape of the lensed fibers compared to the mode-shape of the InP waveguides. By utilizing
tapers at the input and output waveguides, coupling losses can
be significantly reduced [41].
D. Optical Switching
Various couplers of different lengths and gaps were tested.
Coupler 1a exhibited better than 47 dB crosstalk in the OFF
state [38]. We actuated the device at 8 Vp-p square wave
and measured the
coupled power during actu. The reason for the small couation, which was
pling is the short coupling length obtained as well as the waveguide separation at pull-in. We measured a coupling length of
(Fig. 6). Using (2), we obtain
, resulting in a coupling coefficient
. From the simulation (Fig. 3) we see that this coupling coefficient indicates a waveguide gap of 200 nm at pull-in,
a reasonable value considering sidewall roughness and side, but
wall angle. For longer devices we expect similar
, and hence increased coupled
increased coupling length,
.
power
A longer device (coupler 2b) is shown in Fig. 7. Although
stiction is present in this device after initial pull-in, the stiction region is small (solid circle) and for most of the device
the waveguides are sufficiently far apart to prevent significant
optical coupling. Furthermore, because the waveguides are not
completely vertical, the actual contact area is very smallclose
to the bottom the waveguides are in contact and closer to the top
the measured gap is 750 nm in the OFF state. This results in a
large contact resistance between the waveguides with measured
greater than 1
. This is significantly larger than the

PRUESSNER et al.: InP-BASED OPTICAL WAVEGUIDE MEMS SWITCHES

1075

Fig. 6. Measured coupling length for electrostatically actuated coupler 1a during pull-in. The measured coupling length is L
has a small but visible gap separating the waveguides during pull-in.

= 225 m. Note that the device

Fig. 7. (a) Coupler 2b after actuation and subsequent stiction, (b) detail of center region (note: image height has been stretched in order to show detail of stiction
region). With V = 0 the coupled region is small (solid circle) and with V > 0 the coupling region increases (dashed circle).

. This results in 19.2 dB channel isolation. At

we obtain 66%
coupled power and a
minimum uncoupled
power during actuation of 25%. The
, is
switching loss, defined as
less than 10% (0.45 dB). For actuation at 8 Vp-p the measured
, from which we obtain the
coupling length is
coupling coefficient
. Comparing
the two couplers, we find that the coupling coefficient for cou.
pler 2b is similar to coupler 1a
Looking at the simulations, we expect a 190 nm coupling
gap during pull-in for coupler 2b, similar to the 200 nm gap
obtained for coupler 1a.
E. Switching Speed

Fig. 8. Optical response for coupler 2b: (a) actuation signal, (b) measured
optical BAR output, (c) measured optical CROSS output, and (d) coupling
+P
). Both P
and P
are
loss, defined as loss = 1 (P
normalized to P
.

waveguide resistance, which is 10

(i.e., a 1000
waveguide has
). Therefore, we can still electrostatically
actuate the waveguides in the stiction state.
The optical response of the device is shown in Fig. 8. In
coupled power
the OFF state, we measure 1.2%

The measured switching speed of three electrostatically actuated couplers (coupler 1a, coupler 2a, and coupler 2b) is shown
in Fig. 9. The risetime [Fig. 9(a), (c), and (e)] exhibits a delay
before optical coupling occurs due to the waveguide travel time,
the time required for the waveguides to come into sufficiently
close contact in order for optical coupling to occur. It is interesting to note that coupler 1a and coupler 2a exhibit a clear
gap [see Fig. 9(a) and
delay (10 , 18 ) due to the 12
resulting from
(c)]. Coupler 2b has a fairly small delay
the close proximity of the waveguides due to stiction [Fig. 9(e)].
This is in good agreement with theory: due to the exponential
dependence of the coupling coefficient on the waveguide separation, only small gaps ( 100 nm) result in measurable optical
coupling. For this same reason, the falltime [see Fig. 9(b), (d),

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TABLE II
SUMMARY OF MEASURED P
AND PHYSICAL COUPLING LENGTH, L , FOR DIFFERENT DEVICES AND ACTUATION VOLTAGES. THE EXTRACTED COUPLING
, AND THE CHARACTERISTIC COUPLING LENGTH, L , FOR S-POLARIZATION ARE ALSO GIVEN
COEFFICIENT, 

F. Variable Optical Coupling

Fig. 9. Switching speed of several electrostatically actuated MEMS couplers:

(a) risetime for coupler 1a, (b) falltime for coupler 1a, (c) risetime for coupler
2a, (d) falltime for coupler 2a, (e) risetime for coupler 2b (gap
2 m), and
2 m).
(f) falltime for coupler 2b (gap

and (f)] does not show a delay since the beams separate immediately upon removal of the actuation signal and optical coupling decreases. The fastest switching speed we obtained was 4
(coupler 2b). Concerning switching frequency, we actuated
our devices up to 25 kHz (coupler 1a) with no change in device
performance.

The devices discussed above are switches and are digital in

nature: they are either ON or OFF. However, the amount of
optical coupling can be controlled by varying either the waveguide gap or the coupling length. Due to the pull-in nature of
our devices, we cannot continuously vary the waveguide gap to
tune the amount of coupling. We now present experiments that
, in order to achieve
involve varying the coupling length,
variable optical coupling.
Coupler 2b was shown in Fig. 7. The solid circle represents
. As we increase
the coupling region in the rest state
the actuation voltage, the coupling length increases as the two
waveguides come into contact over a larger length (dashed
circle), resulting in increased optical coupling. The measured
optical coupling as a function of actuation voltage is shown
in Fig. 10(a). As the actuation voltage increases, coupling
until the device acts as a
increases from 19.2 dB
3 dB splitter (7 Vp-p). Further increase in actuation voltage
to 8 Vp-p results in 66% coupling ( 1.8 dB). This represents a
17.4 dB dynamic variable coupling range with less than 10%
loss. Such low-loss variable optical coupling is not possible
with end-coupled switches [16][19] in which any uncoupled
power is lost. Therefore, our MEMS evanescent coupler has a
unique advantage over other MEMS-based approaches.
The coupling lengths for this device (coupler 2b) were
measured at 6 Vp-p and 8 Vp-p actuation, resulting
and 550
, respectively. As bein
fore, we calculate the coupling coefficients and obtain
and
,
respectively. The results are summarized in Table II and are
in general agreement with the coupling coefficient obtained
. In
for coupler 1a, which had
our experiments the measured coupling coefficient increases
slightly with both increasing device length as well as increasing
actuation voltage. This is likely due to the slight decrease in
waveguide gap with increased actuation voltage. In addition,
longer devices are more compliant and will also result in a
slightly decreased actuation gap and increased coupling.
A second device (coupler 3b) initially behaves as a 3 dB
[see Fig. 10(b)]. The
power splitter due to stiction at
reason is that the stiction length, and hence the coupling length
, is longer than for coupler 2b. As the actuation voltage
, resulting in an initial decrease
is increased, we increase
in the
power and an increase in the
power [see

PRUESSNER et al.: InP-BASED OPTICAL WAVEGUIDE MEMS SWITCHES

1077

Fig. 10. (a) Variable coupling for coupler 2b and (b) variable coupling for coupler 3b. For coupler 2b an actuation voltage of V = 6 Vp
while for coupler 3b an actuation voltage of V = 5 Vp p causes a decrease in P
.
in P

Fig. 10(b)]. At
we turn the device completely OFF
waveguide. By inso that all the optical power is in the
creasing the actuation voltage to 10 V we increase the
power and decrease the
power arriving again at a 3 dB
coupler. This clearly demonstrates the mode interference picture
predicted by (1), (2) and Fig. 1(c).
While the above experiments utilized couplers and stiction,
we note that similar experiments can be made with couplers
that do not rely on pull-in actuation. From Table II we see
, results in larger coupled
that increased coupling length,
power. Alternatively, (2) tells us that an increased coupling
coefficient, , can give us increased coupled power, since
. Smaller waveguide gaps result in
larger coupling coefficient, . Therefore, variable optical
coupling can also be achieved using actuators that enable continuous variation of the waveguide gap, such as comb-drives. To
this end, a MEMS variable coupler with comb-drive actuation
is presented in Section V.
G. Polarization and Wavelength Dependence
Polarization-dependent coupling was measured using coupler 2b (see Fig. 7) during actuation. The measured
coupled power for both S-and P-polarizations during actuation
is shown in Fig. 11. The results indicate 66% coupling for S-and
2.8% coupling for P-polarization. From the S-polarization mea. Similarly, we obtain
surement we obtain
for P-polarization. The polarization-depen, which is in
dent coupling ratio is then
general agreement with the simulated value
[see Fig. 3(b)].
Some of the discrepancy between simulation and experiment
is due to measurement error, taking into account scattered light
in our measurement setup. We note that the coupled power for
levels) so that meaP-polarization is small (2.8%, or subsurement errors are increased compared to S-polarization. Furthermore, some polarization conversion is to be expected in
the waveguides due to sidewall roughness [42] and the trapezoidal waveguide cross-section. Therefore, if we input 100%
input, then some portion will
P-polarized light into the
be converted to S-polarized light resulting in increased coupling compared to 100% P-polarized light. A third factor is that
the waveguides are not strictly single-mode so that higher order

0 p causes an increase

Fig. 11. Polarization-dependent coupling from BAR to CROSS waveguide

for coupler 2b: S-polarization with 66% coupling (TE-modes, top), and
P-polarization with 2.8% coupling (TM-modes, bottom).

modes may also contribute to the coupling. The simulations, in

contrast, assume single-mode waveguides and therefore predict
slightly lower coupling than we obtain experimentally. Nonetheless, the general agreement in predicting stronger coupling for
S- compared to P-polarized light indicates that the simulations
give a reasonable approximation for future device design.
Optical couplers also exhibit a slight wavelength-dependence. From (4) we see that the coupling coefficient, , is
proportional to the wavevector
. Although
and
in (4) are also wavelength-dependent, to first order
the coupling coefficient has a simple relation to wavelength:
. Therefore, for small wavelength ranges centered about
(typical WDM communications
subbands span 2030 nm range), the coupling coefficient is
relatively wavelength insensitive.
While evanescent coupling results in polarization and some
wavelength sensitivity, there are methods to overcome such
dependence. For example, it has been shown that polarization-independent and wavelength-insensitive fixed couplers
can be demonstrated by connecting two passive couplers in
series with an optical phase shift [43], [44]. Such devices can
be readily adapted to our device by cascading two MEMS
couplers in series and actuating both of them simultaneously
during switching. A second approach requires redesign of the

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waveguide geometry. Polarization-insensitive MEMS couplers

have been simulated by Povinelli et al. [27]. However, these
width and precise
devices required waveguides of
waveguide gaps of similar dimension , which requires electron-beam lighography and is beyond the scope of this work.

V. DISCUSSION
A. Remarks
Coupled-mode theory [21], [22] is accurate for waveguides
that are weakly coupled. We chose our waveguide dimensions
core cross section) for mechanical robustness
based on our prior work on similar dimensioned structures [14].
However, this results in a waveguide that supports more than one
optical mode. Furthermore, one might argue that during pull-in
the waveguides are in contact and therefore strongly-coupled so
that the coupled-mode theory no longer applies.
The experimental results indicate that our devices can
be modeled by single-mode waveguides. Looking at the
single-mode simulations (Fig. 3), we see that for 100200 nm
waveguide gaps we obtain characteristic coupling lengths
. This length scale agrees well with the
, for coupler 1a and
measured pull-in coupling lengths,
coupler 2b (Table II). For coupler 3b we initially obtain lower
coupling with increasing voltage due to destructive interference, in agreement with the coupled-mode theory assuming
single-mode waveguides.
If higher-order modes contribute significantly to coupling,
we should see much stronger coupling than what is predicted
by simulation (see Fig. 3). This stronger coupling should result
.
in significantly shorter characteristic coupling lengths,
However, the experimental results are in good agreement with
simulation based on the fundamental mode, both in the coupling lengths required as well as the polarization-dependence.
Furthermore, due to our suspended waveguide design in which
we utilize tethers for support [35], higher order modes will
experience increased losses compared to the first-order mode.
The reason for this increased loss is the tighter confinement
of the fundamental mode to the core of the waveguide, while
higher order modes are less confined. Therefore, the fundamental mode dominates optical coupling from the BAR to the
CROSS waveguide.
In order to obtain more efficient coupling with greater than
66% coupled power to the CROSS waveguide, we can change
either 1) the coupling coefficient, , or 2) the physical coupling length,
. From Table II we see that the coupling coefficient, , is relatively constant for different devices and actuation voltages. From and (5) we obtain the characteristic cou, which determines the 100% coupling length.
pling length,
Looking at Table II, we see that the physical coupling length is
well below the characteristic coupling length, so that
for coupler 1a and coupler 2b. In order to increase coupling in our devices to 100% we therefore need to increase the
. Alternatively, by designing narpull-in length to
) the evanescent
rower single-mode waveguides (width
field is increased, resulting in a larger coupling coefficient, ,
and increased coupled power.

A secondary consideration for the incomplete coupling is

higher order modes. The coupling length of any higher-order
modes will differ from that of the fundamental mode. Therefore, any power propagating in higher order modes may not
be completely coupled to the CROSS waveguide. In general,
however, optical power is concentrated in the fundamental
mode. This is supported by the good agreement between our
single-mode simulations and the experimental results.
Despite these considerations, we point out that the MEMS
couplers in this work exhibit strong switching contrast. Cou, with 10%
pler 1a shows 47 dB channel isolation at
( 10 dB) coupled power at pull-in. This represents a 37 dB
ON/OFF contrast for the CROSS waveguide, sufficient for many
switching applications.
B. Other MEMS Coupler Designs
For long-haul optical communications, single-mode fibers
and optical switches are needed. Single-mode waveguides are
obtained by simply reducing the cross-sectional area down
[45]. While such small cross-section
to
may impact the mechanical robustness of the device, other
materials (i.e. silicon-on-insulator) can be substituted in place
of InP for passive device operation. By reducing the waveguide
cross-section, the evanescent field increases so that more optical power travels just outside of the waveguide. Simulations
have shown that devices with waveguide widths of 0.7
enable characteristic coupling lengths of
for
complete coupling for both S- and P-polarizations. Therefore,
very compact devices can be realized with the present approach
scaled down to single-mode waveguides. By reducing the size
of our moving waveguides, high speed operation and reduced
switching time can also be expected.
Another modification of the present devices concerns the actuation mechanism. Using pull-in, the coupling gap cannot be
continuously varied. While we have demonstrated variable optical coupling using stiction to vary the coupling length, this
impacts the long-term device operation and reliability. One alternate approach prevents pull-in by using comb-drive actuators to enable continuous tuning of the waveguide separation in
variable optical couplers [see Fig. 12(a)]. Experiments using 1
2 comb-drive couplers (coupler C-D) have shown that this
approach prevents stiction in long and compliant waveguides
. The results (see Fig. 13) successfully demonstrate variable optical coupling. Measurements, however, show
smaller coupling (tens of nW power) compared to the pull-in
power). We believe the weak coupling
actuated couplers (
results from the increased waveguide gap and short coupling
length during actuation in the comb-drive couplers compared to
the pull-in devices, in which the waveguides come into intimate
contact ( 100 nm pull-in gap) over a large coupler segment
during actuation. Nonetheless, the results in Fig. 13 demonstrate the feasibility of optical switching and variable optical
coupling using nonpull-in type actuators, which results in increased reliability.
A second approach utilizes a third electrode to actuate the
waveguide while keeping the
waveguide fixed
waveguide
[see Fig. 12(b)]. If the spacing between the
and the actuation electrode is greater than three times the

PRUESSNER et al.: InP-BASED OPTICAL WAVEGUIDE MEMS SWITCHES

1079

Fig. 12. Schematics for 1 2 couplers: (a) comb-drive coupler in rest state, (b) comb-drive coupler in actuated state, (c) third-electrode coupler in rest state, and
(d) third-electrode coupler in actuated state.

of the MEMS coupler is excellent ( 47 dB) due to the exponential dependence of the coupling coefficient on waveguide gap.
This is a significant advantage of our MEMS approach, since
small actuation distances result in large changes in coupling.
Finally, while the coupling efficiency in the present devices
can be improved compared to other more mature coupler
approaches, single-mode waveguides with matched coupling
) should result in complete coupling in
lengths (i.e.,
our MEMS switch.
VI. CONCLUSION
Fig. 13. Optical coupling in coupler C-D [1
Fig. 12(a) and (b)].

2 2 comb-drive coupler shown in

to
waveguide separation, then we can avoid pull-in
since pull-in is known to occur after a travel range of one third
the original gap [46]. This enables continuous variation of the
gap and hence enables variable optical coupling.
A third approach for increasing device reliability makes use
of surface coatings. Self-assembled monolayers [47] can be utilized to increase the water contact angle of InP surfaces, thereby
making InP hydrophobic. This has the potential for preventing
stiction in our pull-in type MEMS couplers.
C. Comparison of Device Performance
The MEMS coupler experiments show excellent performance compared with other competing designs, such as electrothermal and electro-optic coupler switches. We demonstrated
low-voltage/low-power electrostatic actuation. Electrothermal
of
couplers typically consume mW power [23], so even the
pull-in current in our MEMS couplers results in significantly
lower power consumption. Fabrication of our devices is simple
since the waveguides and actuation elements are fabricated
using standard optical lithography. Although we use InP, the
MEMS coupler can be implemented in low-cost silicon-based
materials and does not rely on specific material properties (such
switching speed is
as electro-optic effects [24]). The 420
significantly faster than that of electrothermal couplers [23] as
well as other MEMS optical switches [16][19], although it
does not compare with the ns (or even sub-ns) speed obtainable
)
with electro-optic switching. The channel isolation (at

In this paper, we have presented an all-optical InP-based

MEMS waveguide switch with evanescent coupling mechanism. Our device utilizes a parallel coupling approach with
electrostatic pull-in actuation. We have measured up to 66%
coupling efficiency with less than 10% (0.45 dB) loss and
a large channel isolation of 47 dB. We also demonstrated
low-loss variable optical coupling with a 17.4 dB dynamic
range. All the demonstrated devices operate at 10 V or less
have
and are low-power. Switching times as short as 4
been achieved, and reliable operation in excess of 10 million
switching cycles at 10 kHz was demonstrated. We also showed
evanescent coupling and switching with comb-drive actuated
devices. The optical simulations are in good agreement with
experimental results in terms of coupled power and polarization effects. Our switches are competitive with other MEMS
approaches (mirrors, end-coupled waveguides) with regard
to optical loss and required power, but with much smaller
device area and the ability to continuously vary the amount
of coupled power. Simulations have shown that future devices
can be scaled down to single-mode waveguides with less than
cross-sectional areas and device lengths of
or less with no change in the basic device design. This
100
will enable large-scale device integration for integrated optical
circuits (OICs) used in network applications and photonic logic.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors thank L. C. Calhoun of the Laboratory for
Physical Sciences (LPS) for assistance with the MBE wafer
growth, L. C. Olver and the LPS staff for cleanroom access,
and T. N. Ding and Dr. R. Grover for useful discussions.
M. Pruessner thanks the ARCS foundation (Washington, DC
chapter) for their generous fellowship support.

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PRUESSNER et al.: InP-BASED OPTICAL WAVEGUIDE MEMS SWITCHES

Marcel W. Pruessner (S00) received the B.S., M.S.,

and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the
University of Maryland, College Park, in 1998, 2002,
and 2005, respectively.
In 1999, he worked at the U.S. Patent and Trademark office as a Patent Examiner in the general area
of circuits and devices. From 1999 to 2000, he was
employed as a Faculty Research Assistant at the
Institute for Plasma Research (now the Institute for
Research in Electronics and Applied Physics) at the
University of Maryland. His research focused on
electron beam position sensing and control for an accelerator project. Since
2000, he has been a graduate research assistant in the MEMS Sensors and
Actuators Lab (MSAL) at the University of Maryland, where his work focuses
on indium phosphide (InP) optical waveguide MEMS for communications and
sensing applications.
Mr. Pruessner is a Member of Phi Beta Kappa, and he is the recipient of a
20032004 ARCS fellowship (Metropolitan Washington, DC Chapter).

Kuldeep Amarnath received the B.Tech. degree

in engineering physics from the Indian Institute of
Technology, Bombay, India, in 1998. While there,
he also worked on projects in Observational Cosmology at the Inter-University Center for Astronomy
and Astrophysics, Pune, and the Tata Institute of
Fundamental Research, Bombay. He is currently a
Doctoral candidate in the Department of Electrical
and Computer Engineering at the University of
Maryland, College Park.
In addition to optical MEMS, his research interests include the development of active microring resonators for use in photonic
logic circuits. He is a recipient of the Army Research Labs graduate research
fellowship.

Madhumita Datta (S98M02) received the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and computer engineering, both from the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1999 and 2002, respectively. Prior to that, she received the B.S.
degree in electrical engineering from Jadavpur University, Calcutta, India, in
1995. Her doctoral research was on hybrid integration and packaging of optoelectronic and fiber-optic modules for telecom and datacom applications.
As part of her postdoctoral research at the MEMS Sensors and Actuators Laboratory at the University of Maryland, College Park, she works on
MEMS-tunable wavelength-selective integrated photonic devices for reconfigurable wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks and BioMEMS
applications. She has published a number of peer-reviewed articles on optoelectronic packaging and optical MEMS in various international journals and
conference proceedings, and holds one U.S. patent.

1081

Daniel P. Kelly was born in Silver Spring, MD, in

1980. He received the B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Maryland, College
Park, in 2002 and is currently pursuing the M.S.
degree in electrical engineering at the University of
Maryland, College Park, with research focused on
InP MEMS.
He is currently with the NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center and QSS Group, Inc., working on Microshutter Array development for the James Webb
Space Telescope. His research interests include
optical MEMS (MOEMS) and integration of optoelectronic materials such as
indium phosphide in MEMS devices.

S. Kanakaraju received the Ph.D degree from Indian

Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, in 1998.
He worked as a research associate at the University of Virginia (19982001) where he was involved
in the development of in situ sensors for thin-film
growth monitoring. He is with the Laboratory for
Physical Sciences since 2001. His research interests
cover epitaxial growth and characterization of
semiconductor heterostructures for optoelectronic
and photonic devices.

Ping-Tong Ho biography and photograph not available at the time of

publication.

Reza Ghodssi (S92M97) received the B.S., M.S.,

and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the
University of Wisconsin at Madison, in 1990, 1992,
and 1996, respectively.
He was a Postdoctoral Associate and a Research
Scientist in the Microsystems Technology Laboratories and the Gas Turbine Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, from
1997 until 1999. During his tenure at MIT, he developed the building block MEMS fabrication technologies for a microturbine generator device and also
served as an Assistant Director on that project. He is Director of the MEMS
Sensors and Actuators Laboratory (MSAL) and an Associate Professor in the
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Institute for Systems Research (ISR) at the University of Maryland (UMD). He is also a core
faculty member in the Bioengineering Graduate Program and Small Smart Systems Center (SSSC) at UMD. His research interests are in design and development of microfabrication technologies and their applications to microsensors,
microactuators, and integrative microsystems.
Dr. Ghodssi was awarded the 2001 UMD George Corcoran Award, 2002
National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and the 2003 UMD Outstanding Systems Engineering Faculty Award. He has served as a Program
Co-Chairman for the 2001 International Semiconductor Device Research
Symposium (ISDRS) and as a Chairman of the MEMS and NEMS Technical
Group at the American Vacuum Society (AVS), from 2002 to 2004. He is a
Co-Founder of the MEMS Alliance Group in the greater Washington area and
a member of the AVS, MRS, AAAS, and ASEE societies.